One of the obstacles to improving HIV prevention and care in Malawi is the lack of trained healthcare professionals, particularly nurses. With only 37 nurses for every 100,000 people, Malawi's nurses work incredibly long shifts of 15-16 hours, often seeing over 100 patients a day.

We created the Nursing Scholarship Fund to ensure that under-staffed healthcare facilities are able to hire qualified, competent nurses. But making sure that the most qualified nurses do not emigrate to western countries is crucial, and so we ask our Nursing Scholars to commit to working in Malawi's state-run hospitals for the same number of years that they received scholarships-typically 3-4 years.

GAIA launched the Nursing Scholarship program in 2005 by sending 40 young women to two of Malawi's top nursing schools. A panel of nursing professionals selects the Scholars based on individual need, talent, and potential. The Nursing Scholars participate in three- and four-year programs at the Kamuzu College of Nursing and Malawi College of Health Sciences. In 2011 GAIA will add an additional 41 nursing scholarships to the program, bringing the total number of current nursing scholars to 185. Some of these women attend a third school, Mzuzu University, located in the north, an area that GAIA had not widely served. The progress of the Scholars is monitored by our GAIA, Malawi Field Officer who holds regular meetings for the Scholars,

As of 2012, 126 recent GAIA nursing scholarship graduates have been deployed to work in the health care system in Malawi or are pursuing graduate degrees.

reports on their grades and obtains tutors for those needing extra help. By 2012 we haee a total of 126 graduates upgrading to higher degrees or deployed to government health facilities.

The program has attracted national attention. In 2010 GAIA won a 5-year $1.7 million dollar grant from USAID, and agreed to match that amount in fundraising.  In the first year of the grant, this money has funded 42 new scholars and has upgraded the capacity of 160 in-service nurses in anti-retroviral therapy, and 10 in BEMONC (basic emergency obstetrical and neonatal care.)

The Nursing Scholarship Fund is altering Malawian society for the better by empowering young women to become agents of change in their communities and role models for millions of vulnerable young girls. Many of our Nursing Scholars are also AIDS orphans who are responsible for raising their siblings. Without nursing scholarships, these young women would struggle to obtain an education. The social and economic empowerment of women is crucial to the country's future and has positive implications for not only for women and girls, but their families and communities-the higher a woman's educational attainment, the lower her chances of contracting HIV.

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